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Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Weekly Writing Wrambling - Plotting vs. Freestyle, Part One

So I'm starting another series, this time about planning a story--or not.
Both can be effective tools in different ways. I've used both, and sometimes
switched halfway during the book. So as a ground rule, I should say that
everything I'm talking about should be fluid. Don't feel constrained into
following your plan. Don't feel like you aren't able to start planning ahead if
you need to. These are tools, which mean that you should use them when you need
to--and not planning is just as much of a tool as planning.

This week, I am going to be discussing working without a plan, or as I think
of it, Freestyle Writing. Generally speaking, most writers start off that way,
and many ideas start that way. It is simply writing what comes to your mind. I
wouldn't say that it means you don't know WHERE you are going; you might still
have an idea of the plot. But you don't have a specific to-do list that you are
working off of.

There are many advantages to this. For one, it is very freeing. If you get
bored of the story, you can change it, and you don't have to worry about hours
or plotting and planning lost, or not knowing where you're going. You can go as
the plot go, as the characters go, and stop writing when you're bored. You
don't have to focus on the boring parts. That's pretty awesome! No boring
parts? I wish my first drafts were free of boring parts. It’s just like taking
a road trip. If you don’t have any stops planned, you can go exactly where you
want when you want to. Mel Gibson would have a field day.

But, like being free, that freedom is the main disadvantage. If you don't
know where you are going, then you don’t really know what you are doing. What
happens when the idea runs out? You haven’t worked out how to get from Plot Point
A to Plot Point D. If you’re trying to plant clues, you might forget to plant
one. Again, this is just like a road trip. If you’ve got no plan, then it can
be difficult to feel like you have a purpose, and then it is hard to get going.

My piece of advice for when this happens is to use your freedom! This is
when something like a genre change, a point-of-view change, a protagonist
change can all come in handy. Remember, this is your first draft—you can keep
the point-of-view or protagonist consistent later. Right now, your job is to
get words on the page, and go from Plot Point A to Plot Point Z. Whatever you
can do to make that happen is a valid technique. Change the novel as much as
you can while still keeping the same general story. If nothing else, those
changesare going to create new problems
and new situations for your characters, and that is going to start shaking
things up and causing problems—and problems are the blood of a story.